Visionless and Tone-Deaf

Despite the likelihood that today's Senate vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would fail, the fact it took place at all is proof of President Bush's tone-deafness and lack of vision.

They said his father lacked "the vision thing." But jeez, this guy lacks vision, period. It's been, according to former Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Arlen Specter, some 100 years since the last no-confidence vote took place in the Senate.

Nonetheless, President Bush deems it necessary to stand by a man his fellow partisans have widely renounced as unethical, morally corrupt, and clearly inept, long past the point when loyalty justified Gonzales's continued tenure?

But wait, there's more. Once again, this president has managed to find an unnecessarily offensive nominee to place in an important federal post. His nominee for surgeon general is sparking an easily avoidable dust-up between gay rights groups and Christian evangelicals. Our national talent pool of brilliant, accomplished doctors is ocean deep.

Notwithstanding, the Bush folks found and nominated a guy who once wrote a paper suggesting gay sex is unnatural. Could they not find someone a bit less controversial? Don't they realize the era of popular support for a moralistic, Christian, evangelical federal government is over? Or did they not read the results of last year's elections?

Come to think of it, White House staffers in charge of the nomination process could use a checkup by a good doctor, since their vision and hearing are clearly failing them.